Posts Tagged ‘FedEx’

Bill Clinton used to say that (fill in the blank) would last “until the last dog dies.” Well, friends, today’s topic is all about a dog that won’t die, absolutely refuses to die, will outlive us all, cannot be killed. You get the point.

Eleven years ago (I almost feel like writing “in a galaxy far away”), the Insider started to track the illegal practice of misclassifying employees. We found that, while it was almost ubiquitous in the construction industry, its tentacles reached into other industries as well. We saw it as widespread right in our backyard of Massachusetts. We found a 2005 paper addressing the issue in the Maine construction industry published by the Labor and Worklife Program, Harvard Law School and the Harvard School of Public Health. We conducted employer seminars on it in many states.

At the time, we thought it was a pretty egregious practice that would be hard for state Attorneys General to ignore, so it would probably get fixed lickety split. We were half right. It was egregious, and Ags from the majority of states published stern regulations, as did state Departments of Insurance. But “fixed?” Nope.

Then, in 2005, a national class-action lawsuit with hundreds of plaintiffs from 30 states was filed against FedEx Ground alleging that workers were misclassified as independent contractors. This was mother’s milk to us. We had our bogeyman, and his name was Fedex. Since then, we’ve written about this Dorian Grey issue ten times. Here’s an example from 2006

Fast forward to now. Specifically, to Wall Street Journal writer Laura Weber’s 30 June story “Bosses Reclassify Workers To Cut Costs.” Ms. Weber’s story manages to be both objective reporting and poignant at the same time. Here’s an exccerpt:

Employers have long shifted work from employees to independent contractors, often relabeling the workers and slightly altering the conditions of their work, court documents and settlements indicate. Now, businesses are turning to other kinds of employment relationships, such as setting up workers as franchisees or owners of limited liability companies, which helps to shield businesses from tax and labor statutes.

In response, some state and federal agencies are aggressively clamping down on such arrangements, passing local legislation, filing briefs in workers’ own lawsuits, and closely tracking the spread of what they see as questionable employment models.

All this is happening against the backdrop of a broader shifting of risk from employers to workers, who shoulder an increasing share of responsibility for everything from health-insurance premiums to retirement income to job security. Alleged misclassification of workers has been one of the primary battlegrounds of this shift, leading to high-profile lawsuits against Uber Technologies Inc. and FedEx Corp., among others. Both have recently lost or settled big cases. Uber is appealing one decision, and FedEx settled in California for $228 million but is continuing to challenge classification lawsuits in other states.

Today I’m an employee; tomorrow I’m an Independent Contractor; the next day a Franchisee, or, oh, I don’t know, CEO of my own one-person LLC. Not only will the dog not die, his bark is really loud.

Very smart people are cooking up these schemes. I ask you – Do you think they are:

Over the years, we’ve devoted a few dozen posts to the issue of FedEx and its drivers. Here’s the issue in a nutshell: FedEx thinks its Ground drivers are independent contractors and the drivers generally disagree.

For the eleven years we’ve been blogging, this issue has been wending its way through state courts, with a win for the company here, a win for the drivers there. On August 27, FedEx suffered a massive one-two punch at hands of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, who overturned a lower court’s decision in Alexander v. FedEx, ruling that 2,300 drivers were indeed employees. Within a few days, the same court ruled that some 360 Oregon drivers were also employees (Slayman v. FedEx.) In making the ruling, the Court found that when the rubber hit the road, the lower court had overstated the entrepreneurial opportunities factor that benefited the so-called independent contractors. It apparently wasn’t enough of a benefit to sway the court.

To paraphrase our illustrious VP, “…this is a big effing deal.”

Contractors and small business are being chased down aggressively by state authorities (and rightly so, we think) to make them shoulder responsibility for employment obligations that other businesses carry. But in the land of the giant employers, many use independent contractor and subcontractor mechanisms to shield themselves from workers comp, Social Security, unemployment insurance, the provision of benefits like healthcare and paid vacation, and the obligation to protect workers in a variety of ways.
For your further edification on this important issue, we defer to business and legal experts. We’ve gathered opinions and analyses from a variety of sources and offer excerpts.

What court rulings against FedEx mean for workers“It seems likely FedEx will want to appeal the 9th Circuit decisions to the Supreme Court. But it may face some difficulty in doing so, because — even though made at the federal level — the two decisions concern matters of state law rather than federal. Their reach is similarly limited; they apply only to FedEx drivers in California and Oregon. But there’s a decent chance the 9th Circuit’s decisions will influence future decisions in other jurisdictions. At the very least, they are shining more light on corporations’ maddening reluctance to take responsibility for the folks who represent them most directly to the public.”

FedEx Latest Company Slammed Over ‘Independent’ Employees“What the 9th Circuit did was to apply the more traditional measure. Judge Stephen Trott, a Reagan appointee in a concurring opinion, quoted Abraham Lincoln: “‘If you call a dog’s tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?’ His answer was, ‘Four. Calling a dog’s tail a leg does not make it a leg.'” Trott also admonished FedEx for presenting some information out of context and told the company’s lawyers that they “would be well advised not to elide the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.”

Reagan Appointee ‘Unravels FedEx’s Business Model’ In Court Ruling“FedEx is largely credited with having pioneered the “independent contractor” work model in the logistics industry. Under this system, workers function as self-employed drivers with their own routes, covering the costs of their own trucks, gasoline, uniforms and so forth.

While corporations claim the contractor system gives drivers flexibility and strong incentives as “small businesses,” critics say it’s simply a way to shift the costs of employment onto workers and avoid payroll taxes and workers’-compensation costs.

The basic question in lawsuits involving the independent contractor model is whether or not a company like FedEx still maintains control over the work itself. In Wednesday’s ruling, the judges asserted that it does.”

Employment Law Summer Recap 2014: Part 1 of 11 – FedEx sings Nico & Vinz’s “Am I Wrong”…to Classify Our Drivers as Independent Contractors?“The decision will likely upend FedEx’s driver business model in part because it makes it more expensive for FedEx to operate its business – an added expense that we can expect it will pass along to us, the consumers. Why more expensive? Because, among other things, FedEx will now have to (i) make the required employer contributions on behalf of these individuals (i.e. to Social Security and unemployment benefit funds); (ii) take out new insurance policies (i.e. for workers’ compensation insurance); (iii) offer them health insurance and (possibly) pension benefits along with other benefits like paid vacation; (iv) incur the administrative and operational costs associated with treating these individuals as employees (i.e. additional training and development, compliance, etc.); and (v) potentially pay them back for millions in lost wages. Further, these individuals can now sue FedEx under many of the employment laws that did not previously cover them (i.e. Title VII) – yet another potential expense for FedEx.”

Who’s the Boss“It has become harder and harder for workers to tell who their employer is. Companies have engaged in vertical dis-integration as franchised businesses have become increasingly prominent and contracting out of operations by traditional firms has increased. The expanded reach of private equity funds as owners of Main Street companies has also undermined the traditional employment relationship.

In both cases, a complex web of legally distinct entities has been put in place whose aim is to separate a business’s actual owners and managers from responsibility for the effects of their decisions on workers.”

‘Seismic’ 9th Cir. rulings nix FedEx claim its drivers aren’t employees, could cost company millions“By retaining independent contractors to perform work instead of employees, companies can potentially save a lot of money that would go toward overtime pay and other benefits such as social security. FedEx also has reportedly required its drivers to pay for their own uniforms and trucks. But if companies are determined to have misclassified employees as independent contractors, they can wind up paying not only the original employee costs they avoided but substantial penalties, as an earlier ABAJournal.com post about the FedEx litigation details.”

Is this the end of the independent contractor as we know it? “This case also confirms that if you exercise any control over how workers perform services for you, it is likely that they should be classified as employees, not independent contractors. This distinction is important, because, unlike contractors, employee are subject to a host of employment laws, including the anti-discrimination laws, workers’ comp laws, and wage-and-hour (minimum wage and overtime) laws.

While this case only covers employers governed by California law in the 9th Circuit, I would expect the filing of copycat lawsuits under the laws of different states in different courts. In other words, this case is not the final word on this issue. Thus, to answer the specific question I posed in the title to this post, while this case does not necessarily spell the end of the independent contractor, it very well could be the beginning of trend of cases leading down this path.”

FedEx Refuses to Treat Your Friendly Delivery Guy Like a Real Employee And an important new court ruling could change that “This is a classic example of employee misclassification, but such employer malfeasance is not limited to FedEx. It’s a nationwide problem that shifts significant costs to workers, eliminates employment-related protections, deprives the government of billions of dollars in revenue and prevents workers from unionizing. On Wednesday, labor earned a big victory when the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in two cases that the shipping company misclassified the employment status of 2,300 California drivers and 363 Oregon drivers. It’s an important, if limited, step towards rectifying this widespread problem.”

Court rejects FedEx Ground’s driver business model“Ross said that FedEx now requires its contractors based in California to hire a secondary workforce of FedEx drivers, who do the same work as the plaintiffs under the same contract. She said the Alexander decision “calls into question FedEx’s strategy of making plaintiffs the middle men” between the secondary workforce of drivers and FedEx. “We have heard of many instances where the secondary drivers are earning such low wages that they have to rely on public assistance to make ends meet.”

We have been tracking the fate of the FedEx business model in state courts as it collides with increasingly stringent definitions of “employee.” FedEx operates under a sophisticated and ingenious contract designed to transform their drivers into “independent contractors.” It’s been a tough haul. For the most part, FedEx has been losing the argument in courts, state by state, and then delaying any ultimate resolution by filing appeals. Today we examine a similar business model: cleaning operations that are classified as franchises.Coverall North America is one of the largest franchise cleaning operations in the world, with 9,000 franchise owners, 50 support centers and 50,000 customers. Franchise owners are trained by Coverall, wear Coverall uniforms, use Coverall mandated supplies and receive payment for their work through Coverall. Coverall bills customers and then pays the franchise owners, after deducting management and royalty fees plus any other incurred expenses.The Massachusetts Standard
Unfortunately for Coverall, they have the burden of demonstrating franchisee “independence” in Massachusetts, which has a very tough, three-pronged standard for independent contracting [Ch. 149, Sec 148B]:
1. The contractor operates free from control or direction
2. The work of the contractor is fundamentally different from the work of the general contractor/owner
3. The contractor operates an independent business and is free to offer services to anyone
Under the MA requirements, independent contractors must meet all three criteria. Coverall first encountered the problem when out-of-work franchisees filed for unemployment benefits. The MA Division of Employment & Training focused on the third prong, determining that franchisees were indeed employees of Coverall, as their work was limited to that secured through Coverall.
In a case brought in Federal Court, franchise owners sought summary judgment against Coverall for the deceptive and unfair labor practice of calling them “independent contractors.” U.S. District Court Judge William Young got the case. He focused on the second prong: Coverall had to demonstrate that they were in a fundamentally different business than their franchisees.
Coverall fashioned a clever but ultimately unsuccessful defense: Coverall corporate is not in the cleaning business, but in the franchising business. Coverall corporate trains people who clean offices and Coverall manages the finances of franchisees, but no one in Coverall actually cleans. Judge Young did not buy that argument. He determined that Coverall provides the administration for the franchisees, who provide the cleaning services. One cannot exist without the other. He granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs.Who Works for Whom?
We are by no means at the end of this seemingly endless attempt to separate independent contractors from employees. What is at stake is pretty obvious: work performed by employees is a lot more expensive than that performed by independent contractors. The lives of most people working as “independent contractors” are difficult; the hours are long, the pay is marginal, the benefits non-existent. And if injured, these folks are usually on their own.
Listen to the names of some of the plaintiffs in this particular case: Aldivar Brandao, Denisse Peneda, Jai Prem, Pius Awuah, Benecira Cavalcante, Nilton Dos Santos. Can you hear exotic music in the names of people born in other lands? And can you hear something more ominous: the dissonence and dislocation of immigration, the struggle to survive in a new land that seemed full of promise from afar, but which has proven to be harsh, stingy and relentlessly demanding?
Welcome to America, employees of Coverall!

Five years ago we blogged the problem FedEx would inevitably run into in Massachusetts, where the definition of “employee” is so inclusive, it’s almost impossible to find a truly “independent contractor.” Well, the proverbial chickens have come home to roost.Attorney General Martha Coakley has announced a settlement with FedEx, wherein the delivery giant has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million relating to the status of 13 “misclassified” delivery drivers. Without admitting liability or wrongdoing, FedEx has agreed to refrain from using the “independent contractor” strategy in response to claims for benefit coverage, including payroll taxes, unemployment insurance, and workers comp. In exchange, Massachusetts will refrain from any further legal action for one year. In other words, for the modest sum of $3 million, FedEx has bought itself a year to clarify its business strategy. Therein lies a tale of attorneys, well worth the telling.
FedEx maintains a steadfast commitment to a business model for its ground delivery system where the work is performed by independent contractors. With a healthy scepticism in our hearts, we have frequently blogged the barriers to independence: the drivers wear FedEx uniforms, drive FedEx trucks, adhere to FedEx dress codes and schedules, etc. FedEx ground does not exist without these drivers and that makes them, in effect, employees. The response to the fundamental query “who controls the work?” has been unambiguously, FedEx.ISP to the Rescue?
As part of its agreement with the Commonwealth, FedEx has outlined its rationale for the independent contractor model. They propose entering into an Independent Service Agreement (ISP) with driver/managers in each service area. Appended to the MA settlement in draft form, the ISP agreement tries diligently to carve out a middle ground where the work is performed independently, but to FedEx standards.
Here are a few of the details:

The local driver/manager must operate under a corporate entity recognized by the state(s) in which he or she operates.

The driver/manager can hire and fire employees and must provide all mandated benefits to employees, including workers comp

Theoretically at least, the driver/manager can be a sole proprietor without employees; in this case, the issue of workers comp coverage is governed by the state statute on sole proprietors (who usually can opt out)

The agreement states that FedEx Ground has no authority to “direct as to methods, manner or means” the provision of services.

The ISP manager has “exclusive rights” in a specific geographic area

While the ISP has the right to decline service, in such cases this triggers the right of FedEx to ensure services

Drivers are not compelled to wear FedEx uniforms or drive FedEx vehicles, but they are paid a weekly incentive to do so.

As you can see, FedEx is trying to establish independence while still maintaining its identity and its standards. The Attorney General has not made any judgment about the validity of this strategy; she has simply cashed a nice check, in exchange for which she has given FedEx a year to work out the kinks. After the year is up, the FedEx model will likely be challenged once again.

Not Quite Independent?
You have to credit the presumably well-paid FedEx team: they have tackled head on the thorny issue of “free from control and direction.” On the surface at least, the ISP approach offers a credible if not totally convincing appearance of independence.
Unfortunately for FedEx, the MA standards have two additional components, neither of which appear to be addressed in the draft ISP agreement: independent contractors must provide a service outside of the general contractor’s usual course of business (no way FedEx can do this) and their independence is reflected in their marketing of services beyond a single customer (what would this look like?).
It will be interesting to see how FedEx responds when local driver/managers stretch the rules and standards in an attempt to assert some real independence. That’s where the rubber will meet the road in this seemingly endless saga: a company with a ferocious need to control, giving up control in order to preserve their idiosyncratic business model.
And some folks say employment law is boring….Stay tuned.

Labor officials of three states have written to FedEx, announcing their intention to file suit for “widespread, long-term, and unlawful employment practices.” We have blogged this employment law conundrum many times (search “independent contractors” in the box to the right). There are at least two mysteries in this action: why only three states are participating (FedEx has lost court cases in at least six states and doomed to lose in many others) and why the states chose to sue at this particular time.
FedEx has until today to file objections to the suit. The complaint was filed from the office of the attorney general in New York and included the signatures of officials from Montana and New Jersey (a somewhat odd triumvirate). Their letter is addressed to William Conley, Esq., managing director of the FedEx Legal Department. With an office in Moon Township PA, Conley may end up mooning the AGs in response – after all, FedEx thus far has shown little interest in conventional employment standards. Mr. Conley runs what must be a very busy office, as there have been numerous court challenges to the FedEx business model. FedEx calls their delivery drivers “independent contractors,” even though the drivers must wear FedEx uniforms (no white sox!), drive FedEx trucks, adhere to FedEx timetables, use FedEx scanners and meet detailed FedEx standards. Drivers they are; independent they are not.
The AGs are seeking restitution, damages, civil penalties and other unspecified types of relief.Is It Legal, Or Is It FedEx?
In some instances, individuals take over FedEx routes and hire others to do the driving. Even though these subcontractor drivers must meet the explicit FedEx standards, the entrepreneurs managing the routes can run the businesses with at least some degree of independence. But where the driver has no employees and simply covers the route for FedEx, there is no credible case to be made for independence.
The FedEx business model has been languishing in state courts for years. Meanwhile, thousands of drivers have labored without a safety net. They work without benefits. If injured, they are completely on their own. It is not difficult to imagine the sense of frustration and outrage that led to this legal action. As for the timing, the three states are filing suit just a few days before Halloween, when ghosts and goblins will prowl dark streets in search of a candy fix. It’s as good a time as any to bury this bogus incarnation of the “independent contractor” concept once and for all.

We live, alas, in interesting times. As the health care debate spirals downward, the fault lines in our culture become more and more evident. On one side, anti-reformers stack town meetings to prevent any meaningful dialogue from taking place. These folks are even trying to intimidate unions. What am I missing here? Who is supposed to intimidate whom? On both sides of this momentous debate, pockets are being stuffed with special interest money. This makes the ultimate outcome – whether status quo or some degree of reform – highly suspect. The notion of genuine debate and civil discourse have disappeared altogether.
Which leads us back for a moment to the lingering conflict between UPS and FedEx. Back in December, we blogged FedEx’s unusual charter:

FedEx began 35 years ago as an airline. As such, it fell under the Railway Labor Act of 1926, which made unionization of public and commercial transport companies extremely difficult. By contrast, UPS began as a trucking company and was subject to the National Labor Relations Act from day one. UPS is unionized: they pay workers more than FedEx, they provide better benefits.

It would be to UPS’s advantage to remove their fierce competitor from the Railway Labor Act and force them to operate under the NLRA. That requires an act of congress, so it’s no surprise that UPS has been aggressively lobbying congress for this change. They say they want to level the playing field.
Level playing fields are fine. The devil is in the details: how do you accomplish your goal? Apparently, by playing unfairly. UPS has been accused of forcing union members to write to their congressmen, urging passage of legislation to eliminate the FedEx exemption. The letters bombarding congress appear to express the views of individual UPS drivers. In fact, many are based upon prescribed forms. We read in the Washington Post:

Officials with UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents 240,000 UPS drivers, acknowledge that the company has paid for workers’ time to pen many of the letters and has supplied the envelopes, paper and stamps needed to mail thousands of them to Congress. UPS spokesman Malcolm Berkley said the effort was “totally voluntary, and any allegations to the contrary are ridiculous.”

But Internet sites dedicated to UPS-related discussions feature dozens of accounts from anonymous employees who in recent weeks have said they were forced to write the letters or felt they would be punished for not doing so. Such tactics could run afoul of both labor laws and lobbying disclosure requirements, according to legal experts.

So it appears that UPS may be violating labor laws in order to force FedEx to operate under labor laws. Were you expecting anything different?Images
In one of Norman Rockwell’s many iconic images, a humbly dressed man stands up in a town meeting to express his opinion. The painting is entitled “Freedom of Speech.” We could certainly argue the degree to which such freedoms ever existed. But it’s all too clear that Rockwell’s image bears no relation to what is occurring today. If he were to depict our present situation, we would see an enraged citizen shouting down his local congressman. This individual would waive an inflammatory poster complete with Nazi symbols. In his pocket, we might glimpse the bus ticket that brought him into town. In the corner we might see an innocent mother, huddling to protect her child from the pending violence.
We are currently facing many complex issues, ranging from FedEx’s status as an employer to the health care options for every American. There are pros and cons to every path. No one really knows how to get from point A to point B. Indeed, we may not even agree on what point B is. But when civil discourse deteriorates into the ravings of the mob, we all lose. If winning is defined by who shouts the loudest, who cheats the most effectively, who succeeds in intimidating the oppostion, there will be no victory for anyone.

Cavalcade of Risk #81 is posted at Jaan Sidorov’s Disease Management Care blog. Check it out, covered topics include health care, information technology, personal risk, market risk and more.Confined space – three sanitation workers died when they were overcome by hydrogen sulfide gas in an 18 foot hole at Regal Recycling Company in Queens. The deceased included a father and son. The three were draining waste from the hole when one fell in and was overcome. As is so often the case in confined space deaths and trench deaths, his would-be-rescuers also became victims. OSHA: Confined SpaceInsurance industry – According to the ISO and the Property Casualty Insurers of America, the first quarter of 2009 was the worst on record for the property casualty industry. Of course, it should be noted that records only go back to 1986, but since then, this is the industry’s worst net loss – some $1.3 billion – and its worst net written premium growth. Net written premiums dropped $4 billion, or 3.6%, in the first three months of 2009 from $110.4 billion in the first three months of 2008.Independent contractor vs employee – Roberto Ceniceros of Business Insurance tells us that 8 attorneys general — from Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island, and Vermont — have expressed their concern to FedEx about potential misclassification of workers. We’ve blogged on this issue numerous times – here are a few past posts related to the new administration , shareholders , NH, CA, CT, federal courts, and MA.OSHA – Acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA and erstwhile blogger Jordan Barab recently outlined key challenges that OSHA is addressing and urged safety professionals to get involved when he spoke before a group from American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE). He emphasized that workers will have a voice and that ” …unions and safety professionals like you will have a seat at the table.” Some of the priorities include developing a Severe Violators Program, addressing critical problems with construction fatalities and injuries, and developing a National Emphasis Program (NEP) for the chemical industry.Hazmat – Training programs and tools developed by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to help communities develop sound, evidence-based assumptions in preparing for hazardous materials (HazMat) emergencies and disasters: HazMat Emergency Preparedness Training and Tools for RespondersArc Flash – Safety Daily Advisor tells us that more than 2,000 workers a year are treated for severe burn injuries from arc flash, a short circuit through the air. In a follow-up post, they discuss arc flash prevention and related safe work practices.Disability – What’s your PDQ? Find out now.